


The Cure for Memory

by RockPaperbackScissors



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Break Up, F/M, Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-07-22 16:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7445218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockPaperbackScissors/pseuds/RockPaperbackScissors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following their encounter on Horizon, Shepard and Kaidan each find themselves receiving support--and challenges--from some unexpected sources.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“ _That_ painting has a special place in my heart.” Kasumi’s voice sounds like it’s a mile away, even though she’s just across the room. 

Shepard has the presence of mind—barely—to register a modicum of guilt when her palm slams into the painting’s frame. She sways, but remains upright. That, at least, was a goal that she could accomplish. 

“Shepard, the women’s restroom is on the starboard side of the ship,” EDI drawls from somewhere in the ceiling.

Shepard swears that there’s something unholy about that AI. She would like to respond with expletives, but has trouble arranging them in the right order. 

Kasumi materializes behind her with soundless swiftness. Typical, but still surprising. “There, now.” She gently pries the shot glass—sticky with spilt cyan liquor—out of Shepard’s fingers. She loops an arm around Shepard’s waist and guides her backwards towards the couch. “Stay here as long as you need.”

As she flops backwards onto the cushions, Shepard raises a hand. It flails about like a dying fish before Kasumi takes it in her own. Kasumi’s fingers are soft and cool, yet hold with a grip that takes no questions. The last thing Shepard sees before she falls out of consciousness is the view through the observation windows overhead: the vacant blackness of space littered with beady, burning pricks of light.

She has never cared less about which one they were heading towards.

——— 

The next time she opens her eyes, they’re scalded by light. As her pupils tighten in protest, she recognizes the smooth ceiling overhead and the sharp smells of medigel and antiseptic. She groans; whatever she’d done had lasted long enough to land her in the medical bay. 

“I’m fine,” she asserts preemptively, squinting. She tries to proper herself up on the cot, but her elbow slips and she’s flat on her back again. 

“You’re _mostly_ fine, Commander.” Dr Chakwas’s face appears overhead, fine eyebrows drawn together. “But you need rest before you go anywhere.” 

“We can’t take any chances with you,” says a clipped, melodic voice from somewhere behind the doctor. _Perfect. Just perfect._

There’s the unmistakable _click_ of a boot heel on the floor, and Miranda appears at the doctor’s elbow, arms folded. Her mouth is a taut line instead of the familiar knowing smile. Shepard glares.

“It’s the Collectors that we can’t take chances with. I need to get back to work.” Shepard tries to sit up again, more slowly and with more success. 

“You’ve already taken chances by consuming a dose of Turian ale that would kill fifty percent of human test subjects.” Miranda’s words are characteristically clinical, but her tone is uncharacteristically muted. “Just take a day or two, Shepard, that’s all we’re asking you to do.”

“‘We’? You two are on the same side, now?” 

Chakwas flinches almost imperceptibly. Shepard hates herself.

“We _three_.” Shepard jumps. Kasumi is standing at the foot of the cot. Shepard is too tired to contemplate how she had arrived there, but a feeling of dread starts to unfurl in her stomach. 

“Is there something I should know?” One could rarely find these three in the same room of the ship, let alone on the same side of an argument. 

“You’ve been through something major,” says Miranda. Her violet-gray eyes hold an expression—guilt? regret?—that Shepard can’t be bothered to analyze. With effort, Shepard holds back the flood of sarcasm that threatens to stampede out through her teeth. Sure, what happened on Horizon had been a major event, but not the kind of major event that the whole crew needed to know about. 

Miranda runs a hand through her silken black hair, as though grasping for an anchor. “You need to be in top condition before we move on to the next stage of the operation.” 

“We all need you at your best, Shepard.” Chakwas leans away from Shepard slightly, as though waiting for an explosion to go off. Her glance flickers towards the flaming red scars that crisscross Shepard’s cheek. 

As the three of them circle the epicenter, Shepard decides to barrel straight in. 

“If you’re worried that I’m going to get sick over Kai—Alenko, then don’t. It’s over. He’s got his job and we’ve got ours.” _Exactly the kind of dutiful platitude that he’d spout himself_. She makes herself smile, but the muscles around her mouth scatter in different directions. The scars feel tighter than ever. “He certainly didn’t waste any time in getting back to work.”

“That may be, but he’s also had more time to process events.” Chakwas raises a hand as if to touch Shepard’s arm, but stops. “After he lost you, he had two years. You’ve only had hours.”

“However,” intones Kasumi with what Shepard believes to be an ominous smugness, “ _You_ have _us_.”

“We need to restock and re-arm, anyway. I’ve told Joker to set a course for the Citadel.” Miranda turns away from the cot and the door whooshes open in front of her. Before she exits, she glances over her shoulder at Chakwas. Sea green eyes meet amethyst ones, and for the briefest of instants, secrecy crackles between them like static. 

Shepard rubs her head, which still throbs faintly. _What the hell was going on?_


	2. Chapter 2

The Citadel is a gleaming face on shattered bones. 

It differs from either the thrumming metropolis that Shepard had first encountered, or the rubble heap that she had last seen in the aftermath of battle. It buoys itself up with densely-packed shops and hypnotic advertisements, a phantom of the vanished leisureliness that she can’t imagine returning within her lifetime. Customers peer at the items on display, their hesitant gestures proving that each credit spent here will be a credit pinched elsewhere. It’s a city of people walking on eggshells, and humans have more eggshells underfoot than most.

Shepard can’t avoid the eyes—of so many different shapes and colors—that flit distrustfully towards the trio of human women. It’s yet another trophy from her hard-won decision of two years previously. She can almost hear their thoughts lancing at her: _What will the human destroy this time?_ It’s a question that she starts to wonder about herself. 

As they pass a shop called Citadel Souvenirs, Shepard ducks her head to avoid eye contact with the Asari shopkeeper, but Kasumi’s gaze is playfully avaricious. 

“Items are sold through automated kiosks,” she muses. “I wonder if—” 

“ _Don’t_ even think about it.” Miranda’s eyes lock onto the thief. 

“—if the shopkeepers ever get bored, that’s all.”

From under the shadow of the Kasumi’s hood, a glittering eye flutters shut briefly, and she sidles into the shop before anyone can stop her. Miranda follows, with a sigh and a gentle tug at Shepard’s elbow. Shepard jerks her elbow back, but trudges after them anyway. 

Citadel Souvenirs is full of warm light and meaningless knick-knacks.Kasumi admires the fish, her fingertips tracing their movements against the glass of the tank. Miranda hovers near her, idly glancing at a list of books. Shepard stands in the corner and stares vacantly into space, until her eyes fall on a particular item in a display case.

“Oh, don’t,” Miranda murmurs a second before Shepard lunges towards it. 

The Normandy. Not the over-inflated, under-equipped luxury liner that Cerberus had strapped her into. The original Normandy SR1. The trundling elevator. The Mako squatting in the lower level. The crew of ghosts. 

Of course, the toy model in front of her is just hollow plastic, but the memories that it evokes twist themselves around her throat. 

Miranda touches Shepard’s elbow. “We should go.”

“No.” Shepard presses her palm to the glass case. She would crawl inside it if she could.

“We can’t afford this.”

Kasumi materializes on Shepard’s other side. “If we can’t afford it, let me steal it for you.” 

“ _Not_ what I meant, Kasumi,” Miranda hisses as she throws a glance at the shopkeeper, who is safely absorbed in reading a datapad behind the counter. “All that this toy would do is remind Shepard of the past, and we can’t afford that kind of distraction.”

“Maybe. But sometimes, a memory can be its own cure.” Kasumi cocks her head at Shepard. “It’s your call. If you don’t want me to take care of this, let’s at least ask them for a discount. People still look up to you, you know.” She pauses, her shadowed eyes darting back and forth as though searching for something in Shepard’s face. “I’m sure that counts for something.”

“No,” Shepard chokes as she scrapes her fingernails across her scars. Her eyes are starting to burn. “That’s not like me. None of this is like me.”

Silently, Kasumi takes Shepard’s hands and guides her towards the shopkeeper, who finally looks up with a distracted smile. Shepard glares at Miranda, not sure if she wants to hate her or be rescued by her. The storm of emotions and the threat of impending tears make her feel like a child. Not to mention the fact that all this is over a toy. 

Miranda’s face is impassive, but she rakes a hand through her hair—a now-familiar gesture of worry. Shepard is dully surprised to realize that anything about Miranda has become familiar.

 

* * *

 

 

_“I’m Commander Shepard and this is my favorite store on the Citadel.”_

He remembers telling her that she was a hard woman to walk away from. Now, he sees that walking away from her is impossible. He thought he had done it on Horizon, but now her voice hounds him with every step that he takes here. He can’t help but analyze each nuance that he hears. 

In Citadel Souvenirs, he can tell that her bright words were buckling under the weight of weariness and anger, and he wonders how much of that was because of him. He goes from store to store, guessing at the order in which she visited them by the way her tone gradually lightens with each recording. In Rodam Expeditions, she sounds almost enthusiastic, almost like the commander he had known and loved. 

The commander he still loves, if he’s being honest about it. 

But who had been with her when she was here? He knows that Garrus is on Shepard’s team. That, at least, he is grateful for, because he shivers when he tries to imagine the kind of people that Cerberus must be throwing at her. He can still feel the black-haired woman’s hawk-eyed stare burning into him as he held Shepard in his arms on Horizon.

He sighs and shakes his head. He knows that there’s nothing he can do now. He’s already lost more sleep than he can afford. In his exhausted, haunted state, the personalized advertisements that call to him from every corner begin to feel like threats. 

“Kaidan, you live a dangerous life. Have you made burial arrangements, so that your family won’t have to?”

“Kaidan, don’t miss the groundbreaking performance of Elcor Hamlet. _Addlepated grief: He is dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone_.”

“Kaidan? Kaidan. _Kaidan_!” 

The last voice—a woman’s—is husky and urgent, lacking the synthesized smoothness of the advertisements. He pauses and turns, in case it belongs to a real person. Sure enough, a figure is rushing towards him and waving, but it’s not anyone he knows. It’s a fine-boned, tawny-skinned woman in a vermillion dress, a purse bouncing against her hip as she runs. 

“Do I know you?” Kaidan asks as she skitters to a stop in front of him. His voice is dry and hoarse.

She grins. “You used to. It’s me. It’s—”

He feels as though a speeder has slammed into him.

“Rahna?”

Her head bobs in the energetic gesture that he once knew so well, the light catching on her shiny cap of black hair. How could he have forgotten what she looked like? That heart-shaped face whose every contour he had memorized, the slender shoulders that he had always wanted to wrap his arms around? 

“H—how are you?” He hates the reflex that sends smalltalk ricocheting out of his mouth. Surely he could find something more meaningful to say to her—this, the second ghost to descend on him in the last week.

Her grin softens, like sunlight evanescing behind mist.“I can’t answer that.” Her vice is so brisk— brisker than he remembers. “I’ve been so many things. But right now? I’m happy to see you.”

“Me too,” he offers, uselessly. He feels relieved and confused and oddly, deeply pained. He rubs the back of his neck and stares at the ground. 

“Listen.” She bobs up on the tips of her toes. “I have a meeting on the Presidium in half an hour, but I could use a snack in the meantime. Join me?”

He takes a deep breath and meets her eyes. “Yes. Anything. Just tell me where.” He wants, for once, to put himself in someone else’s hands, no matter how briefly. 

She nods. “Excellent. I need coffee. Long day ahead of me.”

Perched on stools at a tucked-away cafe in Zakera Ward—mercifully free of Shepard’s endorsements—Kaidan hears the story of the last 20 yeras. After Brain Camp, Rahna was determined to forge a path for nonviolent use of biotics, and she found that path as a fashion designer. She is now famous for designing biotic-friendly clothing, and highlighting biotic models in her shows. Her imminent meeting is with an elite group of Asari actresses in the hope of convincing one or several of them to wear her designs. 

She also has three children, which Kaidan struggles to imagine. 

“And you?” She lowers the sandwich that she has been industriously munching on. “I’ve seen you on the news, naturally. But how are you, in reality?”

Kaidan squirms. Her matter-of-factness answers any remaining questions that had been swirling at the back of his mind. He’s relieved, and saddened, to realize how much is erased by time. “I’ve been… tired. A lot has happened lately.” He explains as best he can; haltingly at first, but then he finds himself telling her everything except for the parts that are classified. Rahna listens and listens with no hint of judgment on her face; he realizes now what a gift that is. 

“Kaidan,” she says after he’s finished, dusting crumbs from her fingertips and glancing at her omni-tool, “You know that I misjudged you, right?”

He blinks, unsure whether of she’s been listening to anything he’s said.

“After Vyrnnus, all those years ago.” Their half hour is nearly over and she's rising from the table. “You did something that I thought was wrong. But you were doing your best in the situation that you were in, and it was wrong of me to cut you off.” She switches her omni-tool off and thrusts a hand towards him. “And so I apologize, Kaidan. I’m sorry for what I did back then.”

Bewildered, he shakes her hand. As he stands up, he struggles to juxtapose the caring girl that he remembers with the incomprehensible woman in front of him. 

And all at once, like an optical illusion snapping into place, he understands what she’s trying to tell him. 

She bows her head like a ballerina at the end of a performance. “It’s been lovely seeing you. It really has. But I should be going. I’ll have my work cut out for me with these Asari prima donnas.” 

“Yes—of course. Good luck. And thank you, Rahna.” He watches her go. She doesn’t look back. Her footsteps are full of a purposefulness that is echoed in the pounding of his own heart. 

He’s barely left the cafe when he’s lit up his own omni-tool and started composing the message. He knows he’ll rewrite it a dozen times. But he realizes that the times when he's least able to find the perfect words are often the times when he can least afford to remain silent.

_You were doing your best._

_It was wrong of me to cut you off._

_I’m sorry for what I did._

_Oh, Shepard._

_Shepard._

_Shepard._


End file.
